An Alaskan journalist's perspective on local and national issues

Posts tagged ‘Evolution’

There was a video that is getting a LOT of attention right now floating around YouTube. In it, famous science celebrity, Bill Nye, has his opinion about a trend in America.

Denial of evolution is unique to the United States.

He’s got a very good point. 6 in 10 American do not believe in the Theory of Evolution. For those who will come at us saying that it is just a theory, you need to understand the definition of a theory. A lot of people confuse this with a hypothesis. A hypothesis is when you have an idea about why something is, but have no proof for it, and you mean to test it. A theory, on the other hand, is something that has been tested and has proof. So why not call it a law? Well, while there can be laws of physics, there cannot be laws of science. We know so little about how the universe truly works that there is no way that we could say that evolution is a law. We have a mountain of scientific evidence for it, so it is true, yet we cannot say that it is a law because there is always a chance that it could be proven wrong.

But, even with the mountains of evidence that exist for the theory of evolution, 6 out of 10 people in this country believe that it is not true. So, what do they believe? Well, in America, the bulk of them believe that a celestial being, either called God, Jehovah, or Yahweh created all the things in the universe. It took seven days, and it wasn’t millions or billions of years ago, it was thousands of years ago.

They call this “creationism.” Now, many will deny that, saying that the theory of creationism (which is there word for it. There is NO proof of this) is that a being, an unnamed being, created the universe. Or rather, could have. But which being? The Christian God? Well, if that is the case, then your position becomes much, MUCH, more complicated.

For one thing – there is absolutely NO scientific evidence that suggests that the universe is only 10 or however many thousand years old. The Theory of Evolution has a mountain of evidence, yet 6 out of 10 people believe in a story about the universe coming into being that has no evidence at all.

Another thing – if the “theory” goes that the universe was created, and we are going to say that this theory has proof, then which being? Was it the Christian God? Was it the Jewish God? Was it Allah? Was it Vishnu? Was it Ra? If they are going to try and prove that this universe was created by a heavenly being that left no evidence for its existence, how can you prove that it wasn’t another heavenly being that did it? Through the course of human history, there have been countless religions and countless stories about the creation of life on Earth. How can you prove one without proving another?

Bill Nye went on to say that if people wanted to believe that this world came to be from a heavenly being, and not through a process that has a mountain of evidence, that’s fine. But the problem comes when people are trying to get that taught in classrooms.

Let’s be plain, here – this is not science. Creationism is a theory in the same way that a tomato is a vegetable. It simply isn’t. There is no evidence for it. But a very solid amount of people in this country want this “theory” to be taught in classrooms. Well, that is just plain nuts. Something that has absolutely zero basis in science doesn’t deserve to be in a scientific classroom, and anybody who thinks that they can argue that it does have a place there should see the previous problems.

There is no evidence of a holy being of any kind existing. All secular evidence that exists about the universe shows that this universe is billions of years old, not thousands. All secular evidence holds that life on this Earth did not get created at the same time, with humans playing on a swing hanging from a Brontosaurus. It gradually evolved and changed over time.

Bill Nye is absolutely right. Creationism has no place in schools. And if we are teaching our kids that it is okay to ignore science, ignore evidence, and ignore facts, then what kind of future could they possibly have? America is getting left behind by the rest of the industrialized world.